


Canis Major

by winterlain



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Married Couple, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Modern AU - Quarantine, Praise Kink, a bunch of other kinks that are probably too blink-and-you'll-miss-it to tag, cabin fever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:01:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24109411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterlain/pseuds/winterlain
Summary: When the lockdown begins, Edward and Solomon take shelter in their cabin in the woods.
Relationships: Lt Edward Little/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36





	Canis Major

**Author's Note:**

> I mixed this totally indulgent quarantini to make myself feel better about everything that's happening in the world right now. Accordingly, the recipe is:
> 
> -one part lumbersexual husbands doing cottage stuff  
> -one part men talking about their feelings  
> -and one part extremely dirty horny hcs  
> -layer over ice and serve garnished with a sprig of wild mint
> 
> It's also very, obnoxiously Canadian (sorry!) and while it's mostly an escapist story, please be aware that there are some brief references to current events, about which I've tried to be as light-handed and respectful as possible.

The cabin had been Edward’s idea.

They were just passing Trois-Rivières when the first shutdowns were announced, and from then on it was a race to beat the border closing. Even then, what would happen if they couldn’t get farther west than Ontario? It was already too late turn back for Truro and the house they could finally call home after the prolonged process of selling Edward’s Halifax condo.

Instead of shooting south via Montreal and Ottawa as originally planned, they could detour north of Laval, taking the 117 to a place that belonged to family friends who occasionally summered a few miles north of Cochrane. There was some initial confusion about this suggestion, as the only Cochrane Solomon had ever heard of was over 3000 kilometres away, in southern Alberta.

It was a good thing that they were already packed for a cross-country haul, clothing, laptops, and dog in tow, so it would be a matter of making a few calls to arrange for keys and utilities, then stockpiling a couple months’ food and supplies before hunkering down to wait things out.

Growing up poor and also plenty of camping experience had taught Solomon how to ration and stretch, and he found himself loading up heftily in the canned and dry goods aisles despite Edward’s assurances that there was going to be a perfectly good working freezer. They hit three supermarkets, a drugstore, a pet store, and a hardware store, trying to be efficient as possible without being _those people_ who panic bought every last pack of toilet paper on the shelf.

Edward had called it a _cottage_ , which brought to mind a dainty picket fence and flower boxes spilling from every window sill, but it turned out to be a true log cabin after all. Maybe it was an eastern thang.

The lights, plumbing, and septic system were in good order. There was a basin and clothes line for washing. The freezer did, in fact, hum to life when plugged in. The old wood stove, however, had seen better days and looked as if it hadn’t been used in an age. It would be easier to plan their meals and cook on the camping range they kept in the truck for overnight stops and emergencies.

The fireplace was in rough shape as well, and the only source of heat. Solomon set to shoveling ash and scrubbing soot whilst Edward unloaded groceries, turned the linens, and cleaned out what was quickly amounting to a truly alarming number of dead bugs. Lucy, their venerable golden retriever, was only too happy to help with everything, and looked more of a chocolate lab by the time men and dog took turns stepping into the small shower.

The water temperature left something to be desired, but Solomon didn’t mind overmuch. He usually ran warm by dint of good genetics, especially in northern climes, a trait that Edward’s frigid extremities appreciated very much just now. By nightfall, they managed to get a fire going, and curled up in front of it to eat their quintessentially lazy Canadian supper of Kraft Dinner, wieners, and beer, neither of them able to summon the energy to cook properly after the long day of driving and hard work.

They facetimed Edward’s folks in Halifax and called Sol’s dad in Lethbridge, then sluggishly nudged one another off the sofa to drag themselves to bed.

The next day Solomon got a proper look around their place and the surrounding area. The cabin’s timbers were hand-hewn and notched, old untreated wood that had aged beautifully. He wouldn’t be surprised if it had originally been built more than a century ago. Edward couldn’t confirm the history, but there were several black and white RCAF photographs hung on the otherwise sparsely decorated walls, and they had driven past an air base on the way up.

The property was surrounded by tall spruce and fir trees that fell off gradually into lower lying brush and a rocky shoreline where it backed onto a partially frozen lake. The pier was old but looked serviceable. It would be useful if they ever came back in the summertime.

What they needed was a routine.

There was no internet connection but they could make do using their data plans. They would drive into town and mooch Wi-Fi from a Tim Horton’s if things got dire enough. The digital box of movies, documentaries, and podcasts they’d loaded up should be good to last them for a stretch.

Despite having lived most of his life in a time zone three hours behind Edward’s hometown, Solomon was somehow the early riser of the two of them. There was something about the clean air and pristine quietude that made him alert and energized. Usually he felt simultaneously tired and harried first thing in the morning, falling asleep stuck in traffic on the way to work. Out here, he needed no alarm to awaken ready to greet the sunrise.

By contrast, he loved the way Edward’s city edges would soften when they came to places like this. Gone was the frenetic energy that hardly remembered to feed itself between answering emails, jumping into meetings, and chasing deadlines. The sombre, tailored angles were replaced by cozy jumpers and woollen socks, old jeans and flannels. His hair would grow out and curl endearingly over his collar, and he could cultivate a surprisingly respectable beard. He even began to smell relaxed, more warm bread than dry spice.

Sol hadn’t the heart to haul Edward up to join him for the morning hikes with Lucy, preferring the look of rare restfulness in Edward’s sleepy smile by the time he rolled out of bed in search of coffee mid-morning.

After breakfast, they would spend a couple of hours catching up whatever work they could, which was more real work for Edward, who had projects that he could write up and review remotely, daily team meetings, and conferences that had been moved online. Solomon mostly caught up emails that bore more of the same (lack of) news, all his job sites having been closed until further notice and permit applications suspended. He called his contractors to make sure everything had been hoarded up and the rentals returned, then the hydro company and the bank to see if anything could be done about the house.

Putting his life’s savings into something so big had been nerve-wracking, something he never thought he’d be able to do. It didn’t seem so important until Edward, and then it surprised him how much he’d wanted it, what it meant to build a place to call their home. Edward found him pacing at the end of the drive after the twentieth attempt to get through to a mortgage advisor.

Perhaps because of their income disparity, Edward was always careful in reassuring Sol that they would get through things together without making him feel insufficient. He knew logically that such ideas about being a good provider were outdated, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to prove his worth and do well by Edward nonetheless.

Afternoons on the trail were idyllic, sunlight filtering through the treeline to cast long languid shadows across the snow. They bundled up and packed sandwiches and a thermos and ate in the open air, trying to identify different birds by colour and call. They saw deer and foxes, porcupines, martens, one day a mother lynx and two kittens. There were wolf droppings, owl pellets and caribou tracks, and sometimes in the distance they spotted the silhouettes of great hulking moose.

Solomon recalled a youth spent hunting with his dad in the wilds of Alberta and thought if he’d had time to apply for the season, they could have meat to last them into next year. Edward told him that things would surely blow over by then, and that they absolutely didn’t have the freezer space. Eschewing provincial game laws, he set a few rudimentary snares anyways. Maybe he could snag them a snowshoe hare.

When the days became warmer, they foraged ramps and morels that had begun to peek through the melt. Sol had hoped for fiddleheads, but supposed they weren’t acclimated to growing this far north in the dry air.

They spent an entire day canning and drying some of their fresh provisions, Edward’s turn to dust off and teach Solomon the homesteading skills he’d learned from his mum. They made stock and jam, tomato sauce and pickles.

On the radio there was a news story about the exodus of city dwellers rushing to take shelter in their cottages, how the influx had depleted local supplies and was a source of ire to the year-round residents of quiet communities unprepared to deal with a sudden outbreak. Sol wrinkled his nose in distaste. He and Edward had clearly been in a tight spot, and they had made sure not to trouble anyone on the way in. They were different from _those people_.

Coffee on the porch, nature documentaries and hockey podcasts. Practicing chords and chopping firewood. Stargazing and afternoon naps, push-ups and blowjobs.

It was bliss.

One month in, the bliss started to wear just a little, tiny bit thin. Really, there was absolutely nothing to complain about. Here he was with his beloved husband, in what was practically Solomon’s dream home in the woods, with all the time in the world to pursue their hobbies, explore the outdoors and one another. He couldn’t think of a more ideal set of circumstances under which to be marooned.

But.

 _But_ , it wasn’t exactly a planned vacation. They had come here out of practicality first and foremost, and only stopped to grab the bare essentials. He agreed it was right of Edward to insist on paying a reasonable sum for the use of the place, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the pile of bills awaiting their eventual return, and the bank still wasn’t answering his calls.

Hiking was good and all, but he would have liked to bring a canoe, and some fishing gear. Also, he had somewhat underestimated their communal rate of beer consumption. They would have to restock soon or resort to rationing. And how had he never noticed just how persistently Edward forgot to close the bread bag, left dirty dishes lying around, and was always jiggling his goddamn knee?

That was just the small stuff. Tuning into the news every day meant not only facing the horrifying, inevitable tally of rising numbers all over the country and the world, but also the shifting of larger tectonic forces that reminded him of just how different they were as people. He couldn’t stand listening to Edward’s lofty talk about sustainable energy and telecommuting just now, when over half of the people he grew up with had lost their jobs or shut down their businesses, possibly for good. (Just a few weeks later, in the wake of the unfathomable tragedy that would hit so close to their own community in Nova Scotia, he would find himself holding his tongue about hunting rights and responsible gun ownership.)

Some days it was easier to just to tune out the noise and one another.

He called Bill in Edmonton for a long overdue catch-up. Despite life getting in the way for weeks or sometimes months at a stretch, he was still Solomon’s best friend and they had the sort of easy, undemanding relationship that fell right back into step without missing a beat.

“How’s tricks out east?”

He’d been the first one to tease Bill for moving to the big city, telling him not to forget his roots and the little people. Sol had taken his lumps back in kind when he had followed suit, then uprooted all the way across the country to shack up with his _sugar daddy_. He would have immediately punched out anyone else, but Bill Heather had a quietly wise, hilarious way of showing him uncomfortable truths about himself. It kept him out of his own ass.

“Probably as crazy as it is everywhere. But I miss you, man.” _I miss home_.

“Miss you too, you should come visit when this blows over.”

“I’d like nothing better. Stay safe.”

One day, he ate an entire family-sized bag of Cheetos and a dozen Oreos.

He found that he actually craved the sound of traffic and drove out for an hour just to jog along the highway. Pretending to chase the cars did something for his lizard brain, and Lucy enjoyed herself as well, so.

Edward, who had started sleeping a lot during the day but otherwise seemed to be going less stir-crazy, finally made the very sensible suggestion of planning a grocery run. It would do them good to revisit civilization.

They made the requisite drive-thru stop at Timmies, then replenished their bread, fruits, vegetables, and liquor, picking up surgical masks, disinfectant wipes, and hand sanitizer this time as well. The hardware store was closed, so they couldn’t get an electric range or crock pot and would have to stretch their butane canisters. Sol wondered if they had failed the apocalypse drill.

Things seemed relatively calm otherwise, so they ventured out for a walk along the town’s main thoroughfare. They discovered that Cochrane had been the birthplace of Tim Horton, of hockey as well as coffee-and-donuts fame, its other prominent feature being its polar bear sanctuary, which was obviously but unfortunately closed to the public. It would definitely be worth visiting when (if) things went back to normal.

***

One morning he returned to find Edward already awake and the place turned nearly upside down. The bed was piled with clothing and every drawer had been ransacked, their contents lined up across the floor. He caught Edward’s arm as he exited the bathroom, interrupting a stream of muttered invective.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“I forgot…I think I’m – hold on, I have one more place to check.” He followed Edward out to the truck and stood with crossed arms, watching as he rifled through all the compartments. When he turned around, Edward looked pale and panicked.

“My meds. I don’t know how I managed to miss…Fuck, Sol, I’m so sorry.”

10 AM, there was time. He found the number for the local pharmacy, cursing when all he got was voicemail. Sunday, of course. He left a message with the contact information for Edward’s doctor, and called back again when he remembered that his file would be under _Tozer_ , not _Little_.

The first day was usually not too bad. It was a mixed blessing that the onset was usually so subtle that there was practically no warning. He looked over at where Edward was seated on the sofa, reading Alistair MacLeod and nursing a mug of honeyed herbal tea (his keep calm and carry on special), and hoped it would be fine. He was still loathe to leave him alone in the house, but there was one stop he would absolutely need to make.

Donning mask and gloves, he drove out to the gas station off the access road and waited as the old man behind the counter reluctantly unlocked the door for him. _I swear this is an emergency_ , he wanted to say as he located two small boxes of _vanity_ – but it wasn’t vain to buy the appropriate size, was it? – condoms. He also thought to grab an extra pack of toilet paper, the impending event clearly about to be an outlier from their regularly scheduled usage.

He put on his best tough-mutt expression as the old guy rang him up, grateful that half his face was already hidden.

“Quarante-sept dollars.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?!” He spent ten minutes trying to argue and cajole in broken, sixth-grade-level French, almost, _almost_ ready to leave and make the drive to town before remembering the pharmacy was closed.

He finally slapped the cash sullenly onto the counter and stalked out, catching sight of the storekeeper thoroughly disinfecting the polymer bills before depositing them into the register. He scowled in disgust, but then a cold realization hit him:

He had become _those people_.

Unlike the way it was sometimes depicted in popular culture, the _scent_ really wasn’t that pervasive. It wasn’t as if it would waft cartoonishly through walls or out open windows, attracting what used to be dismissed as charmingly lovelorn suitors but what any progressive-minded person would now identify for what they were; opportunistic creeps and abusers. There were some people who had to live their entire lives vigilant about what it meant to keep a two-metre distance, he realized.

There was nothing detectable, for example, from where he entered the cabin all the way up to maybe the foot of the bed where Edward had relocated. You also couldn’t discern anything as specific from it as _distress_ or _desire_ , attributes that society had finally started to realize were tantamount to victim-blaming.

What was of the utmost importance was making sure Edward didn’t feel like he was being needy or _high-maintenance_. For the first day, this generally meant giving him plenty of space. He had popped a couple Tylenol and retreated to the bedroom to alternate between working and sleeping it off, so Solomon made his place on the couch, concentrated on organizing his music library, and tried to not pace protectively outside the door.

At lunchtime, he made up some sandwiches and a seltzer, leaving Edward’s tray with a knock. He took his own meal and some beers outside, managing to spend most of the afternoon working on the truck, singing loudly along to the radio, and tossing the occasional ball for Lucy, who was generally content to sprawl out on the flatbed and soak up rays.

A quick shower, followed by a simple one-pot dinner for himself, Edward having texted him to say thanks for the sandwich, but his stomach probably couldn’t manage anything else just now. He was feeling quite pleased by how they had handled things so far. It had felt almost like an ordinary day.

He had only meant to take a short nap, but it was fully dark by the time he awoke to barking outside. The fire had gone out and the front door stood open. Panic rising, he threw on a jacket and ran out to grab a torch from the truck.

He was halfway into the woods when he had the presence of mind to try Edward’s phone.

No answer. He dialed again.

“The number you have called is –”

 _Fuck – okay okay, calm down, remember to breathe_.

Lucy found him first. She led Sol back up to the cabin and along the rear path, stopping in front of the pier where Edward stood clad in only a t-shirt and boxers. _Good girl_ , he gave her a ruffle of gratitude, fighting the irrational surge of frustration that his own defunct sense of smell had failed him at the most crucial time.

Overwhelming relief washed over him even as he resisted the urge to nag and demand answers. He was safe, it was all that mattered.

He walked up gingerly, testing his weight on the rickety boards, as well as being careful to respect Edward’s personal space. The distancing was to prevent them both from going crazy. What happened without it was; Solomon would go into protective overdrive and try to take over doing everything for Edward right when he needed to focus on just trying to feel normal and not lose his sense of control.

Certainly the suppressants would have helped, but the underlying emotions were inevitable, an echo-chamber that amplified all their respective bad traits and habits. This usually meant a lot of yelling (Solomon), prolonged frosty silences (Edward), restless rage (Solomon), unproductive dissociation (Edward), stress-eating (Solomon), and stress-not-eating (Edward). The worst had been the time Edward left quietly and turned off his phone, disappearing to god-knows-where until Solomon nearly lost his mind and finally discovered that he had kept the flat in Halifax all along.

That had been years of difficult talks, learning how to compromise, and setting boundaries ago, of realizing what they had was ultimately worth trying for. They were young and still figuring out what they wanted, and it had taken a long time to learn to be honest with themselves and one another, to negotiate the leaps of trust and all the scary big decisions – moving in together, coming out to family, combining finances, buying the house, tying the knot (just a small backyard ceremony) – that brought them to where they were today.

Even now he couldn’t be sure what Edward needed, what impulse had compelled him to run off into the night without saying anything, in the middle of nowhere when he knew he was at his most vulnerable. He could have just left a goddamn note if he didn’t want to talk.

No, it was fine.

He had only gone a short distance, they had used this trail dozens of times, and there was no one else for miles around, no one who could do him any harm. He was grown man and didn’t need Solomon’s permission to do what he wanted, what he _needed_ , for his own mental health.

“Do you want to be alone?”

“No, it’s okay. I was going to come right back. I just needed some air.”

He switched off the torch. The night enveloped them with a truly breathtaking completeness, only the soft sounds of the lake and a darkness that seemed to tower forever above the treetops, the sea of myriad stars.

“How are you feeling?”

There was a long pause, followed by a long sigh.

“I hate this. I hate my body and I hate that you have to deal with me like this. I hate that I’m complaining about something so trivial and preventable when I have no right to. We’re so lucky, we’re safe and comfortable here while so many people are frightened and suffering and dying, and I hate that too. I feel like I’ve run away and abandoned everyone, and now I’m being a burden to you as well. I hate feeling so privileged and so helpless.”

Even when he was upset, Edward’s voice remained steady and unwavering. Only those who knew him well could hear the flatness of tone that gave away how tired and anxious he felt. Solomon, on the other hand, was the one who would raise his voice, who would rail and storm and most embarrassingly, who sometimes ended up crying when he got too angry, too frustrated.

He couldn’t see Edward at all, but his presence was palpable where he stood just a few feet away, the current of something more primal than scent, than heat, emanating like an infrared image.

“I wish you’d said something, but I’m glad you’re telling me now. I haven’t been easy to deal with either, and I’ve been in my head a lot since we got here. I didn’t even stop to think about how you were processing all of this.”

He thought back over the last couple of weeks with a pang of guilt, the times the arguments had reached a deadlock and he’d been the one to take off without warning, how he’d put off movies Edward wanted to watch together, how he hadn’t even thanked him for the icebox pie and skillet cookies he made as apology for leaving Sol to cook and do the dishes.

“Nothing gets better unless we talk about it, yeah? I get annoyed too easily and it’s something I have to work on. It’s not because I blame you for anything. I’m doing this because I don’t want to feel useless either, not because I think you’re incapable of looking after yourself. If I can’t help the world, I at least want to try helping the one person in it that I love the most.”

Tentatively, he closed the distance until they were in perilous orbit. He fought the urge to reach out and touch the fever on Edward’s skin.

“I wish it were easier to let go and just accept things from you. I wish we weren’t so fundamentally different. If I were normal and didn’t have all these weird stupid hang-ups, it would make everything so much easier for both of us.”

It was why he had kept an empty condo more than a year after they moved, why even before this trip Solomon had to convince him there was no point in taking both cars. In his calm and logical mind, Edward could solve all their problems simply by removing himself from the equation.

“It’s who you are, and nothing could ever make me want you any less. You put up with a whole lot of my shit all the time and I still ask myself why. It’s okay if we’re different and we’ll never be perfect. It’s more than okay if I get to be with you, Edward. I’m just grateful you’ve stuck it out with me for so long.”

He had always known that he was the one who needed this more. Edward was the one with everything; money, looks, a good education, a big, loving family, a successful career. He was completely self-sufficient and could have his pick of anyone he wanted to be with, but somehow he had settled for Sol, a redneck from a backwater town who could barely scrape a life together building things in a world that needed scientists, thinkers and innovators. No, Edward would be fine without him, but without Edward he…

He walked to the end of the pier and tried to focus on the sky until the rush of overwhelming feelings subsided and the stars stopped blurring.

Gently, Edward’s arms encircled his shoulders.

“They’re so bright out here, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“I was dreaming about looking for a star. I always get weird fever dreams but this one was so vivid, like it was a real memory. I was somewhere cold, on the deck of a ship, but it wasn’t sailing. The sea was frozen all around and there was ice on the ropes and tarps all over, and the whole thing was tilted up on a crazy angle.

“Do you ever feel uneasy, in dreams? I guess they’re supposed to reflect our subconscious minds. I’d been given some kind of big responsibility, I think I was supposed to sail the ship, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it out of the ice. Time was running out, there was some horrible thing out there, some unstoppable force preying on everyone one by one, and I didn’t know what to do.

“You came towards me, across the deck. I knew it was your walk even though you were wearing all these layers of wool clothes, and I think some kind of old-school military cap. It was a good look. You asked what I was looking at, and I told you how I would use the stars to navigate if we could just get unstuck. We both knew we couldn’t do anything to change the situation, but you listened and I felt better by the end of it. I was grateful you were there. I guess that’s how I feel right now.”

“Tell me their names.”

“There’s Polaris, the North Star. _Ursa Major_ and _Ursa Minor_. We can see them from the city but they’re much brighter out here.

“That sideway w-shape is the crown of Cassiopeia, the inverted queen. If you follow the point of it at about two o’clock, that’s her daughter Andromeda where she’s been chained to a rock as sacrifice, and Perseus, riding in on Bellerophon to save her. You know, it’s so strange. I don’t remember actually learning astronomy in school, but the constellations and their stories have been in my mind for as long as I can remember.”

“Maybe you knew them in a past life. What was the star you were looking for?”

“Sirius. Part of _Canis Major_ , one of the dogs of Orion, the hunter. It’s the brightest star in the entire night sky, and I was looking for it because I knew it should appear to the southeast, in the opposite direction of where we were trying to go. I thought if I could find it, we could follow it homeward.”

“Did we make it home, in your dream?”

“I’m not sure, I woke up before I could find out.”

“Then will you let this big dog take you home tonight instead?”

***

Day two required a battle plan. Pillows, water, electrolytes, towels, TP, condoms, painkillers, ice packs (bags of frozen veg would have to do).

It also required considerable amounts of stamina, coordination of positions, and trust.

By the time he staggered out wobbly-legged to do something about lunch, they had gone three rounds and the fever was starting to break, thank god. He made one of their mutual comfort dishes, a huge pot of egg noodles with heavy cream, garlic, herbs, parmesan, and an entire stick of butter, and took the whole thing back into the bedroom with a trivet and two forks. The pasta was easy on Edward’s stomach and the carb load would last him a few hours.

The process had become much easier to bear when he realized that no one could actually be expected to enjoy an entire ten hours of antipyretic marathon sex. There were a lot of things you didn’t learn in school or from TV.

By about eight o’clock, Edward was asleep and Sol got up to stretch his sore hips and do some cleaning, including the distasteful but necessary task of inspecting all the used condoms. This would be the absolute worst time for an accident. He took the garbage out to the storage shed and ate some cereal bars and a handful of beef jerky while deciding what to do with the rest of the evening.

He had neglected to pay any attention to Lucy since yesterday, so a walk came first. She didn’t require much maintenance between her mellow disposition and advanced age, but she had been very good and a treat was in order. He opened the drawer where her supplies were stored and took out two new hollow rubber chew toys, filling one with biscuits and leftover sausage for now, the other with peanut butter to pop in the freezer for later.

She settled down to masticate contentedly while Sol went out on the porch and lit up a joint. It was something he rarely indulged in these days, and Edward couldn’t stand the smell, but this was exactly the right kind of night for it, the crisp northern air and calls of owls lulling him to a deep sense of peace.

The world was going to be alright.

***

The third day was always the best one. The hard work was done and arousal simmered down to a pleasant, unhurried buzz. They could look forward to a day of luxuriant, pleasurable, and creative lovemaking.

Morning sex was his favourite, and he felt a little guilty that Edward was usually too sleepy to manage anything except to roll over and let Sol fuck him. He pinned the languorous, pliant body beneath his own and pushed his cock into that gorgeous, slick hot space. Edward pulsed around him and made a soft keening sound that went straight to Solomon’s balls.

 _That’s right, take me so well, pup_.

They couldn’t both fit in the shower so he sat on the toilet’s lid to play with his dick while watching the water sluice deliciously down the lean planes of Edward’s body. He had only gotten even better looking over the last decade, the pretty boyish softness filling out into dignified masculine angles. Edward gamely put on a nice show for him, making sure to afford Sol an excellent view of just how thoroughly he was washing _everything_.

To restore a sense of normalcy, they dressed and had a full breakfast. Toast, bacon and eggs, steel cut oats, coffee and orange juice. On the radio there was news of cautiously lifting some lockdown restrictions, starting out west.

It was nearing the end of April and the temperatures were rising to double-digits at midday. All the parks remained closed, but they packed a picnic and drove to a secluded outlook on the other side of the lake. It was most likely private property, but no signs were posted.

They threw frisbee with the dog and collected wildflowers to press and send to Edward’s mum. Cuddled up in the flatbed under a blanket with cups of hot chocolate, Edward leaned in for a kiss.

“Mm, can’t we just stay here forever?”

“For as long as you want, pup.”

Pushing jeans down and shirts up, they jerked each other off leisurely under the open sky. It was exhilarating.

In the afternoon, Sol made a dismaying discovery. The first box of condoms was done and he had gone to retrieve the second from the bag by the door where he’d dropped it. It was only then that he saw they had expired two years ago. He threw the box across the room and uttered one of the few French words he was fluent with.

It was fine, there were still plenty of options.

In fact, some were even more fun than what the doctor ordered.

He returned to the bedroom and propped up the pillows against the headboard, making a comfortable nest for Edward to recline against, then bid him to lean back and spread his legs. Sol knelt between them and got to work with his mouth and fingers, thoroughly lathering him up with his own juices. Edward linked his hands behind his head and watched himself being serviced, murmuring appreciative noises.

At full hardness, Edward had a perfect little knot, just the right size to slot into Solomon and drive him wild. He pulled off wetly and started fingering himself open, the curve of that lovely dick springing satisfyingly back up against Edward’s belly.

“Can I sit on this for you?”

The way Edward petted his hips and thighs, kissed his fingers, his palms, and told him _don’t stop_ and _good boy_ while he rode did things to his brain, the sweet touches and gentle praise almost as heady as the throbbing cock pounding into him. When he came, it was the longest, most intense orgasm he had had in the entire two days.

They had reached the point where things were winding down and the anticipation of going back to normal was making him begin to miss this already. Of course they could have sex whenever they wanted, but it just didn’t feel quite the same as that unique confluence of hormones and emotions, the instinctive give and take that only came around every few months. Unplanned as this retreat had been, he resolved that if they could, they should go away somewhere next time, too.

There was no set time to leave yet, but it wouldn’t hurt to take stock, and begin to do a bit of packing up so they wouldn’t have to worry about it all at once. He was trying to figure out which supplies they needed to make a point of using up, and had opened the freezer to take inventory when inspiration struck.

One of the last symptoms to abate was the eponymous heat, Edward still running warm to the touch nearly seventy-two hours later. Mostly he was comfortable if the air temperature was cool enough and they went at it every few hours, supplemented by the occasional Tylenol and cold shower when needed. The bag of vegetables had been refrozen a dozen times now.

They had exhausted the list of favourite positions twice over and it was always a challenge to find things that were less athletic, lazy but still exciting. Constantly laying down fresh towels meant they had to be washed and hung up to dry in batches every few hours, but this would require something that might not be salvageable. He dug out his oldest, most threadbare shirt, the White Wolf band tee from Sol’s first ever concert that had tears in both armpits, and resolved to give it a spectacular send-off.

He told Edward to get on the sofa, spread the shirt out beneath him, then rolled his hips up to remove his pants and told him to close his eyes.

The Kong lay where he had left it yesterday, nestled between the ground turkey and the fish sticks. Feeling less bad about what he was about to do because they had somehow forgotten they already bought the other one, he rolled the chilled rubber across his palm. It was perfect, cold enough to soothe but not enough to burn.

He put down a couple of cushions to save his knees, then got on the floor and brushed the sectioned, conical shape along the inside of Edward’s bare thigh, eliciting a gasp of surprise followed by a hiss of pleasure.

“Oh my god, what _is_ that?”

Although Edward obediently kept his eyes shut, he could see that he was trying to puzzle out the mystery object. As far as he knew, all of their toys were still locked up at home in the same drawer as the suppressants.

“I thought we could have a little creative improvisation, as a treat.”

He dropped the toy into Edward’s hands and smugly relished his open-mouthed look of shock when he saw what it was.

“Sol, this is a _dog_ toy.”

“Yeah, I know. We didn’t bring any people toys.”

“What is this stuff? Is this _peanut butter_?”

Solomon licked his lips, giving Edward a wicked look.

“I didn’t say you were the only one getting a treat.”

Somehow, the design couldn’t have been more ideally suited for its unintended purpose. The wide base meant that he could push the thing in safely up to its second rounded segment and watch Edward squirm as he clenched around its considerable girth, sighing with pleasure and relief.

When Edward’s body heat began to melt the peanut butter plug, he squeezed and pushed his tongue into the outer end’s opening, causing Edward to roll his eyes up and whimper at the deliciously filthy sensation of his fevered insides being filled up with cold, creamy goo.

Yes, he made the nicest picture falling halfway out of one of Sol’s lived-in plaid shirts, panting with that sliver of pink tongue protruding from the bow of rosy lips framed by the striking full dark beard, his legs spread wide, hair tousled and eyes unfocused with faintly mortified lust. And he was all Solomon’s, here in their little cabin in the woods, surrounded by the trees and the animals and the earth and the stars.

But the very best part was licking into that sweet, familiar, secret part of Edward’s body, the smell and taste and texture of him flooding Solomon’s senses like something older than memory, something he knew before he was born.

He took his time, leaving long wet licks and trails of kisses, not caring that he was making a mess. All the while Edward bracketed him between trembling thighs, praised him and ran fingertips over his scalp, massaged his neck and shoulders, scratched under his chin and behind his ears.

 _Good boy_.

It felt like coming home.

***

They had finished packing everything they could and were giving the place a final sweep before turning in for the last night. With all of the garbage, recycling, and empties they were carrying out, there was just enough room left in the truck for the couple small bags of perishables that would need to be loaded in the morning.

A close inspection of the couch proved it to be miraculously unblemished by any questionable substances, the most difficult part of that cleanup having involved getting all the peanut butter out of Solomon’s beard and Edward’s body hair. They agreed it had been worth it.

Leaving felt like a strange cross between the aftermath of a house party, checking out of a hotel room, and moving away from somewhere you had lived for years. It had been a surreal nearly three months of their lives.

It would be a long while before things were back to normal yet, if that’s what life before this had been. Maybe that was the thing about normal though; it was merely how things were until they weren’t anymore. Sol hated kitschy jargon like _the new normal_ but he supposed he couldn’t fight the fact that they were living it, or at least trying to. Edward had steered his company to contribute resources towards the vaccine research effort, and Solomon was working on designs for protective shields to retrofit service kiosks. It felt better to be doing something, however small. No task was unimportant in the fight to save lives, whether it was in the lab or the workshop. It was how they would get through this, together.

He felt weirdly raw after being away from people for so long, like he wasn’t ready for all the complication and the interaction and the _noise_. Here, where there was only one other wavelength to tangle with his, his own thoughts had grown so loud. He asked Bill if it was neurotic to be aware of the volume of your own brain and got told that it probably meant he was actually using it instead of letting it live rent-free in his skull like some kind of Neolithic pudding.

 _Very funny_ , he texted back, _that’s why you’re the smart one and I’m the arm candy._

They agreed it would be best to do the twenty-hour return trip in one shot, taking turns at the wheel and pulling into parking lots to nap, using whatever coffee shop and truck stop bathrooms were open. Sol had done long-haul transport for a year in his early twenties, and knew it would be rough but manageable.

They had filled the tank and stocked up on energy drinks at the local gas station, Edward engaging the storekeeper in friendly banter at requisite distance, his French a mix of standard and Acadian but still way better than Solomon’s. Sol had resisted the idea of dealing with the old miser who sold him the outrageously overpriced, expired condoms again, but Edward convinced him that they should meet their neighbours properly if they planned to return here.

Étienne was a widower who had been sent to Pagwa, which lay 400 kilometres to the west, when the RCAF took over a radar surveillance station that was built there by the Americans during the Cold War. The station had become defunct in the late sixties, but he’d stuck around and taken on odd jobs, living off the land and piloting seaplanes for the local chartered air service that flew in fishers and hunters out of the base they had seen. Most of his children and grandchildren lived in Chicoutimi, all the way on the other side of Quebec and he rarely saw them. Now he realized it was something he couldn't take for granted.

But he had survived his share of major world crises and was determined to see the other side of this one as well. He had fallen in love with this place, with its towering pines and deep, cold lakes, its old railway lines, its human ingenuity and resilience that could withstand anything. It turned out that he was also the landowner of the vista they had enjoyed that memorable afternoon, and they were welcome to use it whenever they found themselves in this neck of the woods. Solomon had to respect a tough old bastard with a heart of gold. Eventually they had to beg off to finish packing, and he only balked a little when Edward told him to keep the not-insubstantial amount of change.

“Besides,” Edward teased, “Haven’t you always said that we ought to support local businesses and keep the Oil Sands afloat? There’s your twofer.”

Solomon couldn’t argue with that logic.

The laundry was done, the fireplace cleaned, dishes replaced, thank-you note written and tucked into the envelope of money on the table. He was proud to leave the place in better shape than they had found it. He realized that he had started to think of it as _theirs_ , and maybe it was, in a way.

Three provinces, two cities, and three towns.

 _This is a place where we have lived_.

He wanted to pay one last visit to the lake before they left, and asked if Edward would join him. They put on their flannels and boots, the temperature still a bit chilly at night despite being almost June. They followed the trail with Lucy scouting ahead, so familiar by now that they needed no flashlight to find the way.

They walked out along the pier, one on either side, and turned to face one another when they reached the end of it. The ice had fully melted now and the tranquil surface was the perfect mirror of the night sky, every constellation suspended above its watery double.

Nothing felt more natural than to step forth, closing the distance until they were standing side by side, together again, looking for a star that they could follow all the way home.


End file.
